


Little Words Make Big Changes

by Fullmetal450



Series: Achievement Unlocked: Start A Family. [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Families of Choice, Foster Care, Gen, M/M, References to Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 00:10:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3360527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fullmetal450/pseuds/Fullmetal450
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six words have been changing Jack's life since he was newly married and ready to take on the world, and Geoff made sure he knew that 'take on the world' meant 'slowly adopt five kids and foster some more in the interim.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Words Make Big Changes

The first 'baby' they get is Michael.

The first _baby_ they get is Ray. 

The last 'baby' they get is Gavin. 

The last _baby_ they get is Ray.

* * *

They're kind of young, sort of well off, very excited, and absolutely in love. So they look at their options. They're married and their next step is kind of sure (kids), but also unsure, and they don't know exactly what they want. Adoption seems like a different, more permanent thing than fostering, so they go with the latter. Geoff drags Jack from office to office, house to house, agency to agency. He finds out which areas need homes the most, which are near their jobs, which are best for kids. Jack sees his husband--a man frequently accused of being an enormous slacker--come alive and research and collect books and do everything he can to be sure he knows what to expect.

He finally settles on the most cliche house, one that's only missing a white picket fence, and it has a beautiful white outside and green window trims. It has so many rooms and it's expensive, but Geoff and Jack have been saving since high school and they've only just come to realize that it's for this. The monster of suburbia that typically wouldn't belong to the gay couple that's half tattooed, mustachioed sleepy gruffness and half orange bearded rumblyness with a soft, gooey center. 

But it does, and they clean and paint and furnish and they make a big empty house into a big not so empty soon to be home, with the first memories of them trying to christen it but falling asleep before anything else ever gets done.

And then they wait.

\-----

It doesn't take long to have their home examined, and their files examined, and their life examined, and then they're on their way to pick up their first foster child. Mikey Vincent Jones. The first thing Mikey says when they find him in a sandbox with a robot and shovel is, "I don't like Mikey. It's fucking dumb. I'm _Michael_."

Jack is kind of amused by the tiny six year old with the potty mouth, but when he turns to look at Michael's caseworker, he can see she's less amused. When he turns to look at Geoff, though...

His husband staring at this tiny, curly haired child like he's _never_ seen anything like him. Geoff finally turns his gaze to Jack and crosses his arm, flashing tattoos to the curious kid. He just shakes his head minutely, grabbing Jack and pulling him back inside. Neither of them sees Michael's tiny face crumple. 

That's the day that Jack first heard the six words that he'll hear four more times in his life, from his mouth and his husband's.

"We have to adopt that kid."

\-----

The process is a lot longer than that, and they actually have to discuss it like a married couple is supposed to, but when Geoff goes back outside and picks up Michael and ruffles his hair, Jack knows this is happening. He pretends to resign himself, smiling and watching Geoff as he very seriously and firmly tells Michael that he is lovely and going to be adopted by them and that he needs to tell them now if he likes playstation better than Xbox because they'll love him anyway but differently. 

This time they do see Michael's face crumple, but it's sweet and he's so excited to pull on their facial hair to show how happy he is. 

* * *

They meet Lindsay on a trip back to the adoption and fostering building. They don't have the same exact automatic connection as they did with Michael, but Jack thinks it's only because Michael has thrown two temper tantrums already that day, and Jack and Geoff are two seconds away from ripping their hair out. 

They enter and they're trying to figure out where to go when Michael suddenly hurries away and rushes at a little girl sitting in a computer desk chair behind the front counter.

"I'm Michael! I like your shoes, do they light up?" He stands, almost quivering with excitement as he waits for her answer. 

She stares at him in awe and shock, quickly shaking her head. "No, they're just shiny..." She looks down at Michael's feet, eyes wide. "Do yours...?"

Their son nods quickly, stomping his feet and sounding like a tiny herd as he tries to show her. "Yeah! Daddy said they were cool, because they have Spiderman. Do you like him? Annie from school says girls can't like Spiderman, or _any_  superheroes, but that's not true. Do you like any?"

When Michael's caseworker comes to find them, they've found out that she's Lindsay, five, and she likes cats, the colors red and orange, and she thinks Wolverine is the best. She's also sweet, smart, only a little shy, and, according to the quiet murmurs from Michael's caseworker, her old foster parents are having a baby and she'll exceed the limit the DFPS has for foster families. As soon as she finishes the story, Jack is on his phone, looking for the nearest Braum's for the ride home. 

Geoff turns on his gentler charm and very sweetly demands that they be Lindsay's next foster home. The caseworker is hesitant, because Michael has only been with them for four months, but they assure her of their training and expertise, and they strong arm her as gently as they can. 

Lindsay has a small bag and no supplies, so they spend their day looking around Walmart and Target and eating ice cream, and the entire trip is punctuated by the light up My Little Pony sneakers that they put on Lindsay's feet in the Target parking lot. Or maybe it's punctuated by the look on her face when she and Michael stomp circles around each other. Or maybe it's punctuated by Geoff turning to him with a bright mischievous grin, kissing him before he opens his mouth and says those six beautiful words. 

"We have to adopt this kid."

* * *

They’ve had Michael and Lindsay for a year and are fostering Caleb when they find Ryan.

They’re bringing pizza in for Lindsay’s class for their Halloween party when Jack spots him sitting against the wall in the middle of the hallway. He's just sitting quietly, fiddling with an obviously broken DS and sniffling slightly.   
  
Geoff is already halfway into Lindsay's classroom, but Jack stops and watched the kid. Something about him catches Jack's attention, and before he knows it, he's taking the pizza meant for him and Geoff and giving it to the boy.   
  
The kid stares at him in shock, and Jack just gives him a light smile before going on his way and entering the classroom. Geoff grumbles when Jack tells him, but he kisses Jack’s cheek (amidst high pitched giggles), and Jack doesn’t think anything of it when school lets out and the kid isn’t there.

\-----

They’ve said their goodbyes to Caleb, who has found a home with his mother’s sister, and they’re taking a breather. (The kid was like the human embodiment of a golden retriever’s excitement.) Said breather is interrupted by the official Ramsey-Pattillo/Pattillo-Ramsey caseworker calling. They’re right back at it, bustling Lindsay and Michael into their car for what has officially been titled an emergency.

They arrive at the same tall building that makes their kiddos uncomfortable, and enter it to find three other sets of foster parents, all in various stages of anger, frustration, and sadness.

“We can’t take him, too,” a blonde woman says, clutching the hand of the man next to her. “We don’t have the room, or the money, and he doesn’t fit in.”

Another parent scowls, glaring at the ground. “I’m not taking him, he’s not a good influence on our kids,” he growled, his eyes flicking to the right.

Jack turns his attention to the caseworker, and he’s somewhat shocked to see her standing with the kid, the one he gave a pizza to almost two months ago. He adjusts his grip on Lindsay and Michael’s hands and stands back, able to see Geoff’s mustache practically bristling at how rude they’re being in front of a little boy.

“What the hell is this?” He starts, voice firm and angrier than the normal tone that everyone who’s met them is used to. Before Michael can screech ‘swear jar,’ Geoff keeps going, stepping closer to the loose circle that they make. “I thought this was an emergency, not a meeting of assholes.” This time Michael makes it, and he immediately starts tugging on Jack’s hand, bouncing up and down and repeating ‘swear jar.’

The caseworker almost wilts with relief when she sees them, making her way over. They’ve built a steady trust, with Michael and Lindsay being happy as can be, and Caleb sad to leave them, but ready to live elsewhere. So it’s not much of a surprise when she slowly presses the kid towards them and gives them a pleading look. “Please. They’re investigating the home, and all the kids are being split up, and none of them will take Ryan,” she says, resting her hand on his shoulder. “Please.”

One of the other parents looks worried, and he starts to speak, but Jack quickly shuts him down with a hard glare and a sharp nod. “We’ll take him.”

The caseworker sighs heavily, nodding and leading them towards her office. “I promise, it’ll only be temporary, and then we’ll have him--”  
  
Jack shakes his head, trailing after her and tossing a smile over at his gobsmacked husband. “We take them until they get adopted, or until they turn eighteen, right, honey?”  
  


Slowly, Geoff gives him this stupidly lovely grin and nods, ruffling Lindsay’s hair as she tries to cling to him now. “Exactly, honey bear.” He pats Ryan’s shoulder and makes sure the kid is comfortable with it before turning and motioning to their family. “Add him to our lot.”

\-----

It takes them almost a month to actually establish conversations with Ryan, and it’s only because he’s goaded out of his shell by Michael and Lindsay. The boy doesn’t trust Geoff and Jack, not yet, but when they look at his file and see how many times he’s moved, they remember their determination to stick with it. And they do.

They have to see him cry at night, panic when Geoff jokingly charges at Michael or Lindsay, jump in front of anything that can hurt them. They see other foster parents, ones who've had him, side eye them with disbelief. They see a kid afraid to share anything about himself, in case it's used against him. They see him flinch and try to run and grow more tense with every passing day, expecting his welcome to run out.

They watch him go to middle school, join a computer club, make a friend or two, depending on when you ask him. They get to see him win a sciences award, see him off to a summer program for kids his age, see him become Ryan.

Then they see him open up to them, come to Geoff with friend problems and requests for games and just to sit together. See him put forth his own opinions and thoughts and ideas. They see him become Rye-bread.

Most of the time, Geoff is the one to say it. Jack’s pretty sure it’ll be like that for all the children they end up adopting. Except this one. He knows when he sees Ryan help Michael calm down, help Lindsay when she’s nervous and stumbling over words. He knows when he sees Ryan mix the right amount of sugar into Geoff’s coffee because his dad is sleepy and funny when he mixes in salt instead, but he likes him happy. He knows when Ryan comes to him, nervous and flushing and saying he wants to build a computer and will Jack help him. He just knows that this kid belongs with them.

So he mumbles it softly at night, when Geoff is turning off the lights and all the kids are tucked into bed, and he can’t help but give a sappy smile to his beautiful husband with the sleepy eyes and the gentle heart.

“We have to adopt that kid.”

* * *

Ray is the tiniest baby he’s ever seen. Geoff jokes he’s probably the tiniest baby ever and that he loves his tiny baby. He really needs to delete Tumblr from his husband’s phone, and life.

They’ve been foster parents for two years and Ryan is the happiest they’ve ever seen him and technically they haven’t adopted him yet, so it’s been two years since they’ve actually ‘taken a kid for themselves’ as their caseworker likes to say. So technically, the next ‘baby’ they get after Michael and Lindsay is their first actual baby. Ray.

Ray is teeny weeny and Michael can’t stop poking his chubby cheeks and he’s so little and Geoff looks so much bigger than him but it’s like they fit together perfectly. His tanned arms looking fantastic against the light blue baby blanket, and he’s the first child they’ve adopted with the true intent to adopt. It’s hard to simply foster a baby, everyone thinks they’re the best thing in the world to have. But they want to take on the responsibility and they’ve talked about it with Michael and Lindsay and Ryan and there’s a green light on all sides. But they stay close to home, because they know that kids slip through the cracks everywhere. They wait, and they wait, and they’re almost into the third year of what they do (their caseworker calls them lightning), and then they get a phone call.

Ray Narvaez Jr. is tiny and he has chubby cheeks and soft fists and delicate skin and he cries when he’s near them, because his mom just left and he doesn’t understand. He cries and he cries until Ryan strokes under his chin and then he’s staring at them with those wide brown eyes and Jack doesn’t think there’s anything more amazing than looking down into your arms and seeing maybe the tiniest human being ever blinking sleepily up at you while he sucks on a pacifier that Geoff so lovingly calls a binkie.

Speaking of Geoff, he’s finished tucking Michael and Lindsay in and Ryan is heating up milk for a bottle, and Jack just watches his son concentrate so ferociously on that milk, and… Damn, their family is so cute.

He stares at his husband and grins and wiggles his eyebrows. Geoff immediately takes the cue and leans in to kiss him softly until Ray starts to fuss and Ryan tries to clear his throat to get their attention. Geoff’s voice is soft and amused and Jack has never loved anyone the way he loves this man, who is repeating his silly little mantra, just a little differently for their special case.

“I’m glad we adopted this kid.”

* * *

Gavin is tiny and sweet and he has that soft British accent that’s only been made better by the fact that it’s basically an exotic thing in Texas. So every home is willing to take him. They’re attracted to how sweet and cute and just _British_ he is, and he’s the revolving door of their county, because the cuteness and sweetness and Britishness don’t make up for the loud voice, the lack of subtlety, the way he just doesn’t fit the picture perfect idea of what cute tiny British children are supposed to be. And the word British comes up a lot, because that’s all he is now. Not Gavin, just a tiny English flag in the shape of a now four year old boy.

So the boy moves from house to house until he’s a topic of discussion, cute little Gavin who is clumsy and soon to be troubled. They don’t take much notice of him. because they have their baby quota, and Ray is just starting to chew on the teething rings and they’re not a new family, but their situation is considered when placing foster kids.

The Ramsey-Pattillo/Pattillo-Ramsey family is six people strong, or rather, five and a half, since Michael says Ray is way too little to count as a whole person. They’re still in the same house, and they’re still a happy halfway place for kids, and their last adoption was a year ago. So with their ten year old, eight year old, seven year old, and two year old, they’re presumably done with their actual adopted family. They have two spaces for foster kids to cycle through, and some do. When they actually find Gavin, or he finds them, they’ve got Joel and Kerry with them, and the two boys are rowdy and excitable and each have their own already determined spots in life.

Even though they know Joel and Kerry aren’t happiest with them, it’s still not up to them to make space for Gavin. Which makes their meeting with him all the harder.

All they’re doing is letting the kids run around the park near the house, with Ryan sitting a foot or two away on the blanket, playing with Ray’s toys and trying to distract him from his teeth and gums. Jack’s halfway watching them and halfway listening to Geoff’s tattoo ideas when he hears Michael let out the most high pitched scream he’s ever heard from him. And Michael screams often.

Geoff’s off in an instant, and Jack quickly makes sure Ryan and Ray are alright before he glances over to where Geoff is trying to find their son.

There’s tense silence--other parents are watching Geoff nervously and glancing at Jack--before Jack sees his beautiful, handsome adult husband let out the longest groan and collapse to the ground dramatically.

Ryan--lovely Ryan--calls Joel and Kerry over from the ice cream stand and they surround Ray and that’s all Jack needs to take a few seconds and run towards his husband, who’s lying on the ground and clutching his chest.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Geoff gasps, looking up at Jack and giving him an apologetic and tired smile. “Michael is a princess being eaten by Gavin the dragon, to be saved by Lady Lindsay, Greatest Knight of the South.”

Jack immediately understands, and he nods along and he listens to Lindsay chat his ear off and pull him to the tower that Gavin is prowling around and Gavin is apparently a tiny British boy with fluffy hair and a big nose and a set of eyes that are so excited and admiring when they turn to Michael and Lindsay.

So he leaves and he lets them play and he keeps an eye on three instead of the the regular two and Geoff bounces Ray in his lap and the boy chatters out a lispy ‘ice cream’ and soon everyone wants some. Gavin sneaks away when they’re getting ice cream, and they find him on the swings waiting for them to come back from the ice cream stand. He smiles and then he looks like he’s going to piss himself when Geoff comes stomping over.

“I have absolutely no idea how you expect me to get you ice cream when you don’t even tell me your favorite flavor,” he grumbles, glaring playfully and Gavin’s looking less terrified and more excitedly confused.

They take the kid and push some ice cream into his hand and finally there’s a woman who approaches them with a smile and a cigarette in her hand and she takes Gavin and he says good-bye so excitedly and says he wants to see them again because their whole family is absolutely _top_. (Jack thinks that means great.)

It isn’t the last time they see Gavin just as a foster child for some other family. Every time they see him, he has a different set of parents, and Jack did not know that many foster families were near them. (He later learns that the state psychologist for foster children has his office close to that park.) Every time they see the boy, he looks at them with a weird kind of hope, and he rushes over to play, and he stumbles sometimes and he scratches himself up and he loves the bandages Michael makes them buy because Mickey is absolutely top. He’s half Michael’s age, but his curly haired kid has decided that he and Lindsay have to be Gavin’s older siblings, because that’s what having littler brothers is supposed to be about, patching them up and teaching them the right way to swing and make sand castles and Ray’s way too little.

It’s apparently the stage where Michael’s fairly sure he knows everything there is to know about anything and he has to be right. It’s a lot sweeter when he’s just insisting that they bring an extra toy to the park just in case Gavin is there again.

They’re so used to seeing Gavin in dirty play clothes that it’s a pure shock when they show up to the same old building to see a new, different caseworker, and he has Gavin by his side in a tiny suit. They’re there for unrelated things (they’re scheduling their training update session), but they’re happy to see him nonetheless, and Michael immediately runs at Gavin and hugs him tightly.

It’s frankly very shocking when the tiny boy bursts into tears and sobs into Michael’s t-shirt.

They find out the story as quickly as possible, with gentle questions and one hand resting in Gavin’s fluffy head of hair. Gavin’s cycled through enough homes that it’s another situation of what Ryan went through. No family wants to take him, no matter how sweet he is. His habits cause too many accidents in households, so it’s time for them to take him to another county, and he won’t go to the same school that he just started, and he won’t go to the same psychologist, and he won’t go to the same park, and chances are that he won’t see anyone he knows again, because the nearest county with a family ready to take him ASAP is nowhere nearby.

Michael starts to cry, too. Because Gavin only understands that he’s going to be in a new place with no friends, and he doesn’t understand why, but Michael does, just a little, and he can’t really explain it to him.

Slowly, all of his babies huddle around the British boy, Joel included, and they cling and they hug and they do their best to show they’re going to miss him, and Kerry isn’t with them anymore, he’s been adopted by a beautiful woman who treats him like a little prince, and it clicks, and Jack laughs because he knows what’s going to happen before it actually happens. Because all those trips to the park and all that begging is coming together in the best kind of way right now. He shakes his head when Geoff turns to him, smiling. “I have to say it.”

“No, you don’t,” Jack grumbles back, laughing and motioning for Gavin’s caseworker to step towards the office of the Ramsey-Pattillo/Pattillo-Ramsey caseworker. “You could just not.”  
  
Geoff just gives him a bright grin, and he sighs heavily, clutching his chest and speaking loudly enough that his words send screams of sobbing delight among their litter.

“We have to adopt this kid.”

* * *

The little birdy that never _legally_ came under their wings (Ray’s analogy) was Barbara. She was too close to eighteen to want to be adopted, and she never counted on being wanted around. She was used to seeing older kids taken to homes and then let go without a trace. Kids who never found a home were allowed to simply go and find one for themselves. She simply was assigned to them, no fanatics, no fanfare. She was just happy that they were nice, willing to let her buy things, and willing to take her anywhere she wanted unless they could not do so at all. They’d even lend her a car if she had to go.

They were just a stop on her way, they knew she thought of them that way. But they fought it. They celebrated Hanukkah with her, researched for weeks, did all their homework and made it as respectful but fun as possible, because they were the Ramsey-

Pattillos/Pattillo-Ramseys. Everything had to be fun and the best thing ever. And it was. She hadn’t had a real Hanukkah celebration in a long time, with so many foster parents simply skating over it. But they put all their hearts into it and did everything she could want and more. She’d never forget how many times Michael tried to teach Gavin to spin a dreidel, only for the boy to fail again and again. She’d never forget Lindsay and Ryan pouring over songbooks with her, and Ray pulling her hair and demanding she sing again and again, so many songs sung so many times.

She’ll never forget her Hanukkah with them.

As her eighteenth birthday inched closer, she was filled with fear and dread. School had ended, which meant they would have no reason to keep her around. She was half scared, half excited, knowing July 2nd would be her first day into the real world.

And she came downstairs and all she got was the same pancakes and streamers and cupcakes and presents that she’d been told of when the others had a birthday. She was given a scarf, a pretty necklace, a scrapbook, and a sweet smile from Geoff when he told her he was going to miss her so much. She remembers tearing up at the idea of leaving them, and being ready to bolt upstairs to pack, and he gives her a survey to fill out for her college dorm and says it’s all hitting him and she’s never seen Geoff _really_ cry, but he sure does look like he’s moments away from it. So she hugs him and she clings to him and she cries for him, and he still looks like he’s going to cry, and Ray, tiny Ray who is four and starts school soon, squirms into the middle of their hug and hugs them both and says they’ll start a new school together, like best friends, but far away, and she cries harder, and she loves these people so much and she never wants to come out of the group hug they’ve made and she feels warm and happy in a way she hasn’t in the twelve years she’s been in the system.

But all things come to an end, and she thinks that end is the day that they’re seeing her off at the airport, sending her to a school in a different place that she’s never been with exactly what she wants to study, and Geoff is so proud of his little nerd warrior, the first of his babies to go to college, or at least that’s what Jack says he means when he just says, “Have a nice trip, nerd warrior.”

She thinks this is the end, but Geoff and Jack both hug her and she’s in this weird sandwich when she hears Geoff grumbling. “You had better come for the second half of Hanukkah. The first half is filled with classes, I checked your schedule, and you had better not skip.” She’s shocked and amused and she knows if she doesn’t come, they’ll come for her, the entire herd, and it’ll just be easier if she comes. So she promises, and she calls, and she makes up for all the time she didn’t have a family by now having the best one ever.

* * *

Not everything is perfect. There are the few kids who they can’t take in because the children are homophobic. It hurts that they’re so young but so hateful. There are the kids that they aren’t trained enough to take, cases of severe abuse that they won’t be able to give all the help they can to. Kids who aren’t adoptable, because they’re only in foster homes until their parents get their shit together and get them. There are kids who they have for moments before the parents say they’ve got their shit together when they actually don’t. But they do their best when someone comes floating through, and they build their little family, and they make it an actually very big family and they never move and they’re always in that big white house with the green trim that Geoff swears he’ll change every year, but when MIchael and Lindsay and Gavin go to paint it, he makes them find an almost exactly matching shade because that is the house he picked with his husband of now so many years and that is the house he wants his family to always come home to.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly a series depending on if I get more ideas. Please feel free to share any ideas and thoughts (here or on tumblr at neptunegotthatvasiliass.tumblr.com) and maybe I can get some little drabbles going.


End file.
